“You’re Halliwell?” he asked as he slipped on a long wool coat. Once again, more like a lawyer than a cop.
“That’s right. Detective Unger?”
Unger put his hand out and Halliwell shook it, thinking that the man reminded him more than a little of a gunfighter from some old spaghetti western.
“Pleased to meet you. I’ve got an appointment later so I thought we should just get on to business, if you don’t mind. I’ll walk you over to the crime scene and we can have a look around, give you an idea of what happened. If that suits you.”
The man had been all activity from the moment he’d appeared, putting on his jacket and then checking the gun in his shoulder holster, as if he expected armed resistance to their outing. As he spoke, he went to the reception desk and flipped through several messages his daughter had written down. When Halliwell didn’t respond immediately he glanced up, eyebrows raised.
“That’ll be fine,” Halliwell said.
Unger nodded and put the messages back down on the desk. He bent over it to kiss his daughter on the forehead— an act that seemed out of place with his overly businesslike demeanor— and Halliwell decided he liked the hawk-faced man. Unger slipped a thick scarf and a wool cap off the coatrack by the door, earning Halliwell’s envy, and then led the way back outside.
They had less than an hour of daylight left and already the world had a gray twilight pall about it. As they strode around the front of the police station and then started down the street back toward the center of town, Halliwell caught Unger up on the circumstances of Max Bascombe’s murder and the disappearance of his children.
“Well, we know Oliver Bascombe’s alive, at least,” Detective Unger said, his small blue eyes glancing sidelong at Halliwell. “Or he was last night.”
“No doubt about your witness I.D.?”
“None. Three different kids picked him out as having been in the park last night. Half a dozen people who were in the train station identified his picture as well. The officers who tried to chase him down didn’t get within twenty feet of him, but the lead officer, Morgan Dubay, was close enough. It was him, all right.”
They reached the town square and crossed the street in front of a small pub called Two Dogs. On the other side of the park, smoke rose from two thick chimneys that jutted up from the train station.
“Never really doubted it, considering the way the girl was killed.”
Unger grunted, lowered his head and stared at the ground a moment, and then narrowed his gaze as he peered at Halliwell again. “What do you make of it, then? The son do it? He unhinged or something? Or is he running and whoever killed his old man and the St. John girl is chasing him?”
Ted Halliwell rubbed his hands in front of him, blowing on them to warm them as they started through the park on a path that led amongst tall evergreens, past a playground that was closed for the winter— all the swings missing— and toward an outdoor skating rink still roped off with yellow crime scene tape.
“There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense about the Bascombe case,” he said, without glancing again at Unger. He didn’t want to have to try to put into words the unease that took him when he considered the unusual way first Oliver and then Collette had vanished, Oliver in the midst of a blizzard, and both without any obvious clue as to the mode of their departure.
“But do you make the son for the killings?”
Unger had asked a direct question. Halliwell couldn’t avoid answering it.
“I don’t figure him for a killer. But you never know, do you?”
There was a pause in the conversation as Unger took in the question, which Halliwell had purposely posed with a weariness he knew the other detective must share. That was the price of the job they both worked, a dulling of blind faith in humanity.
“No,” Unger agreed. “No, I guess you don’t.”
As they approached the rink— and the train station beyond— Unger stopped and pointed south to where the evergreens were more plentiful and grew together in a dense little wood right in the middle of the park.
“According to the kids, who were the first to see him, Bascombe came out of those trees there with an Asian woman in some kind of fur coat with a hood.”
Halliwell frowned. “First I’ve heard about her.”
Unger shrugged. “The A.P.B. was for Bascombe. Anyway, point is, all the witnesses to Alice St. John’s murder had the killer showing up the same way. Guy in a black or gray cloak— sounds like the Grim Reaper from the description— rushes out of the woods, grabs the nearest kid, and—”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Poor little thing. My wife had Alice in her kindergarten class six, seven years ago. Cute as a button.”
The details of the girl’s murder were in the preliminary coroner’s report and Halliwell felt no need to press Unger on them. The little girl’s murder had been hideous, her eyes gouged out, the cause of death blood loss and trauma. But there were things about the report that were unclear and he could not avoid addressing them.
“I’m sorry, Detective. It’s a hell of a thing.”
Unger nodded grimly.
“The preliminary report says the investigating officers never found her eyes. Is that still—”
“Not a trace,” Unger replied in disgust. “You believe it? The guy kills her right out in public, mutilates her like that, and keeps them as . . . as trophies or whatever. It’s inhuman.”
Halliwell started toward the skating rink. He didn’t bother ducking under the police tape. There was nothing to see but ice. New-fallen snow had covered up any trace of blood or the markings the local cops had made to note the position of the body. There were no evidence markers. Nothing but that bright yellow tape. Still, he found himself staring at the spot where he imagined it had happened. Two kids were making snow angels in the park not thirty yards from the site of the murder, but there weren’t any others in sight. He wondered how many parents were keeping their kids under lock and key this week. Most of them, he imagined.
“My officers were at that end of the park,” Unger continued, pointing north. “They spotted Bascombe and the woman talking to some kids here. Then the two of them started for the train station and one of the kids shouted after them. According to the kids, they seemed to know about Alice’s murder. Anyway, the officers were suspicious and went after them, thinking to question them, and Bascombe and the woman took off. They ran into the station.”
As he spoke, Unger led Halliwell across the paved drive that separated the station from the park and up the stairs of the train station. They went through and out onto the platform. There was no train in sight.
“It’s a tourist thing, the train. Scenic railroad. They serve hot chocolate and sing Christmas carols and pretend they’re riding to the north pole. The kids love it, apparently. But it’s nice that they can make some money to keep the old trains running and the station in decent shape. It’s a historic landmark and I’d hate to see it end up replaced by more shops.”
Halliwell nodded. “It’s a beautiful town. You could live your whole life here and never have to think about all the crap the rest of the world deals with every day.”
Unger laughed. “That’s the hope.” He gestured toward the tracks, beyond which there was nothing but winter forest. “The train was here. The officers pursued Bascombe and the woman through the crowd. The suspects jumped off the platform and ran around the front of the train to the woods on the other side. By the time the officers got around there, they were gone.”
Gone. Halliwell wasn’t sure how to express his thoughts to Unger, so he kept them to himself, but that was the thing that kept coming back to him. The killer appears out of nowhere, a tall, imposing guy, fairly conspicuous in his cloak or whatever. He kills a girl in broad daylight yet somehow manages to disappear without a trace. Then Bascombe and this mystery woman appear, also seemingly out of nowhere, only to vanish. Others might have made assumptions about the Cottingsley P.D., figured they were incompetent. Halliwell knew better. One cop, sure, but an entire police department incapable of tracking three strangers in their town— strangers who appeared to have no vehicle and no other means to leave the town— was impossible to believe.
So, what, then? That was the thing he kept coming back to. How had the killer— not to mention Bascombe— slipped in and out of Cottingsley undetected? Likely the same way Oliver had left his family home back on Rose Ridge Lane in Kitteridge. But Halliwell hadn’t figured that part out yet, either.
Arms crossed, teeth almost chattering with the cold, he stared at the snow-covered woods behind the train station.
“So where did they go?” he asked, mostly to himself.
“North, for starters,” Unger replied.
Halliwell cocked his head. “How do you know that?”
“A bunch of hunters saw them. Well, saw the Asian woman in the fur. Fox fur, according to them. She stole a shotgun and some ammunition from the back of one of their trucks and then ran into the woods.”
“That’s new information,” Halliwell said.
“As of a few hours ago, yes,” Unger confirmed.
“And let me guess. They went to chase her, but she vanished into the woods?”
Unger nodded.
“Shit,” Halliwell muttered. He scratched his head, staring again at the snowy woods across the train tracks.
“There is . . . one other thing,” Unger said.
Halliwell turned to regard him, but the other detective studiously avoided his gaze. He had his hands clasped behind his back and was looking south along the tracks as though he expected the train to arrive at any moment.
“Yeah?”
“Something that wasn’t in the preliminary report. And . . . won’t be in the final one, either.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Halliwell said.
Unger continued to pretend to wait for the train. “The officers on the scene reported a substance left behind in Alice’s . . . in the victim’s eye sockets by the killer. The coroner confirmed it. Just—” The detective shook his head and blew out a long breath. “Just packed in there, somehow. None of the witnesses saw it happen, apparently. I mean, they saw him mutilate her like that, take out her eyes, but nobody saw him filling the empty sockets back up.”
There was a hollowness in his voice that would haunt Ted Halliwell for a very long time.
“With what?” he asked.
At last Unger turned and stared at him, nostrils flaring in what might have been anger or grief or horror. When he spoke, he flinched as though the words physically hurt him.
“With sand.”
Oliver smelled cherries.
The demon lunged from the branches overhead and laughed as he fell upon his prey. The shotgun was empty, but instinctively Oliver swung it up and drove the butt of the weapon into Aerico’s face. The demon’s spidery fingers scratched Oliver’s throat and he felt a terrible itching— sure that the same blisters and splotches that had appeared on his wrist before were spreading across his neck. But he ignored it. The butt of the shotgun split Aerico’s cherry skin. Beneath it was the same moist purple flesh as the fruit.
Aerico squealed with pain and tumbled to the ground, but quickly scrambled away, turning around to face Oliver in a crouch. One of those impossibly long hands was clasped to his split cheek and his pink eyes flared with fury.
Then the demon laughed again and lowered his hand. Where the wound had been, cherry blossoms had grown, knitting the flesh together. Aerico would heal. The image made Oliver shudder as he recalled the fate that had befallen Frost in the cherry trees, with branches speared through his icy form and cherries growing from his wounds.
Must be some magic there, more than just the injuries. He’s Jack Frost. He’s a storm shaped like a man. Oliver thought of the poison touch of the demon and was certain that had something to do with it. Somehow Aerico had paralyzed Kitsune and the winter man, and ambushed them first because they were a danger to him. Too powerful to combat without subterfuge.
“You’re a coward,” he said suddenly, speaking the realization aloud.
The demon stopped laughing. In the shadows of the orchard he started forward again, careful this time and eyeing the shotgun Oliver was using as a club, but preparing to attack nevertheless.
“I don’t like you, Bascombe,” Aerico sneered, the smell of cherries stronger than ever. “I may fill you with seeds, with my seeds, and see how many new trees will grow from your flesh, roots burrowing from your back into the soil . . . and see how long I can cultivate you and keep you alive while it happens.”
Oliver was in so much pain from the welts and blisters and scraped hand and the injuries to his back and shoulder that his fear seemed far, far away. He had distanced himself from it. Exhaustion and pain seemed to smother him, and now he was only angry and impatient.
Across the orchard he could still hear Kitsune barking in pain.
He waved the shotgun as though it was a baseball bat and just nodded, urging the demon on. If he’d been a different sort of man he would have summoned up some pithy quip, some macho riposte, but Oliver wasn’t wired that way. He just wanted to survive.
Aerico scuttled nearer to a pear tree and reached long arms upward, spindly fingers wrapping around the lower branches. The demon meant to return to the trees, to attack from the shadows. Oliver amazed himself by rushing forward, not wanting to give Aerico another chance at such an attack. He raised the shotgun.
But never swung it.
Even as the demon tried to pull himself into a tree, the ground seemed to whisper and then green and brown shoots pushed up through the dirt. Tree roots wrapped around Aerico’s legs, cutting in to tender cherry flesh. Stalks of corn and wheat burst from the ground with a dry, rasping noise and ensnared the demon’s arms and throat, weaving themselves around him. Aerico screamed and tried to tear himself away, but he was held fast.